Climbing of Gunung Nuang

In my younger days, I had never done any mountain climbing. The nearest, part of the mountain range that I came across was the hill adjacent to the far end of Pei Yuan secondary school in Kampar. During recess time, we used to gather and hop around on those big rocks near the foot of the hill but never dare to venture further beyond that where the Kampar hill proper is within reach just a few hundred meters away.

A mountain always looks forbidding to me because one never gets a chance to see through what lies in between the foot of the hill and its tip. The undergrowth and trees that intermingled within, shrouded any barely visible jungle path and the bright sunshine. The thick leaves on the tree tops cover the sky and present a shadowy, and gloomy surrounding which seems to be filled with too many hidden unknown elements. Strange noises from insect, birds, monkeys and other wild animals, the gentle breeze on fallen leaves and the rubbing of branches  add further mystery that deter any stranger from venturing into such an unfamiliar territory. At that time I just could not imagine someone who would like to trek for days to Gunung Tahan and Taman Negara park. It would be a dangerous attempt  that could land yourself to the menace of blood sucking leeches, stepping on poisonous snakes, accidentally bumping into bears or even man-eating tigers! Mountains did not fascinate me in those years and I'd rather take a cool nice dip in ponds or lakes where one could just float close to the water surface, feeling more cozy that way,  even with the unfathomed depth lying below!

I changed my attitude towards mountains lately, perhaps very much influenced by the companionship,  comradeship and  also enjoyed the togetherness of conquering mountains with a few of my friends and buddies. Another probable reason being, it is much easier to strike a lottery than to spot a tiger in the wild nowadays. After the first ever Gunung Bunga Buah climb near Genting Highland, the momentum had driven me to set foot on Gunung Nuang near Ulu Langat. Its close proximity to the city makes it easily accessible from Kuala Lumpur.

I recounted the climb and wanted to relate and share my experience here with some photos:

On the holiday of 1Malaysia day, CC Wong and myself set off at about 7.00 am and parked our car at the entrance of the park. Registered ourselves with the park authority before starting the climb. It started with a stretch of road and CC termed it aptly "The never ending road". The road led us through some "Orang Asli" or aborigine houses and bamboo forest, on the way there were some huts built for the resting of the trekkers. The distance was roughly about 5Km and we took about half an hour to complete the journey, it was a pleasant walk under the morning sun, take a look at those photos below and you will understand what I mean.

Before long, we reached a few streams that we had to cross after arriving at a water catchment area. I took off my shoes to avoid wetting them, othewise it would be uncomfortable for the long journey up and down the hill. I roughly counted we had crossed six streams in between some rocky paths!

CC is a veteran trekker and he had climbed even to the mount Everest base camp. This was his sixth times climbing Nuang and yet we lost our way for almost half an hour near the first stream though somehow we managed to trace the path backwards and followed the big water-piping that eventually led us to camp Lolo. We climbed all the way further up the next destination, Camp Pacat. As the name implied, there must be leeches. Surprisingly so far I encountered only one leech near the crossing of one of the streams and I was just in time to get rid of it before it started to bite. Comparing to the Gunung Bunga Buah trek , I would say leeches here are actually rare!

From Camp Pacat onwards, the climb was steep and upon reaching Puncak Pengasih, that was one of the peaks. To reach the other peak which is of the same altitude, we had to go downhill through a wet and muddy path and climb another 45 minutes to reach the Nuang peak.

We finally reached there, snapped a photo of me for the record. One could enjoy a good idyllic view of the Ulu Langat dam from above the mountain.

We completed the entire trip roughly in the region of 8.5 hours. They are saying that if one could climb this mountain, you could practically climb all mountains in Malaysia. I took the challenge and now I have more confidence and am looking forward to climb more Malaysian mountains in the near future.